Author's Note: This one turned a bit dry in my opinion. I may rewrite this one later. Suggestions are always welcome, but I admit I'm having trouble writing the battle scenes so that they're interesting.

Backstory Note: The NRG is a prominent part of this chapter. It was introduced previously in Chapter 4. It is a weapon that accelerates a nuclear warhead out of what amounts to a large gun barrel on a ballistic course. It has no guidance systems, so it has to be used at close range to guarantee a hit. This weapon was developed because missiles proved far too easy to intercept with defensive fire as seen in Stargate Atlantis. The weapon is generally used on frigates and destroyers since it's difficult to cram in large enough power generators in ships that small to operate an Asgard plasma-beam weapon.

Chapter 14

Jorgan stared at the strategic plot and smiled.

The Tau'ri were acting the fools he knew them to be. In response to what was a clear threat, they had opted for a weak response. That response had caused damage, no doubt, but it was inconsequential.

Four outlying worlds had been hit. One had been a minor shipyard facility. That loss was somewhat inconvenient since it was near the Tau'ri itself and would've been useful for what he was planning. Nevertheless, Jorgan had assumed that that facility was likely to be lost and he had already planned around it.

Jorgan had assumed a counterstrike of some sort would come his way after the attack on Cimerria. Undoubtedly, the Tau'ri was attempting to put him on the defensive, force him to draw his forces back inside his own frontier. To do so would curtail his attempts to find this secret base that his spies told him was called the "Theta Site".

He sensed someone's presence entering the room. He turned to face Torias, his deputy. "Torias, you have done well as usual," Jorgan said.

Torias nodded. "Our spies tell us that the Tau'ri have started redeploying much of their fleet. It looks like a panic reaction. They clearly don't know what our next target is or what our ultimate objective is, that much is obvious from the deployment patterns."

"Good," Jorgan said. "We want them running around all over the galaxy as much as possible. The more they're doing that, the less forces they have allocated to defend our objective."

Torias scratched his head. "That operation will be difficult," he said.

Jorgan smiled. "Our new allies will make up any shortfall in firepower needed."

Most people wouldn't have noticed the look of concern on Torias's face, but Jorgan had known the man for many years. "Speak your mind," he said.

"I am concerned about our new allies," Torias said. "I understand the reasoning behind allying with them, it makes sense. Still, I'm not sure how much we can trust them."

Jorgan might've considered such a statement disloyal if it were anyone else, but not coming from Torias. "That's why I insisted they share their new power generation and weapons technologies with us. It maintains a balance of power between us and them. Once the war is over, there will be a balance of power in place such that a war between us and the Wraith will be so destructive that neither will be interested in pursuing it. We will have our security and freedom within our own borders, and they will have their...conquests."

Torias grimaced. It was one thing to fight against other humans, but this was something else. He agreed that it was their only real option, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"The next phase of our operation is starting shortly," Jorgan said. "Come here to watch?"

Torias nodded. "There's not really much else for me to do at the moment."

XXXXXXXXXX

Captain Harold Ingraham sipped his coffee. It was a welcome pleasure to distract him from the fact that his ship was in the hands of the shipyard workers.

"Commander Kurtz," Ingraham addressed his XO, "give me the progress report on our repairs. And please God let it be good news."

Kurtz smiled. "You're in luck today, Captain. The yard dogs say that the replacement plasma-beam emitter will be installed by the end of the day."

"Finally," Ingraham said, taking another sip of his coffee. Like all Daedalus class ships, the USS Homer was fitted with four of the powerful Asgard weapons. Unfortunately, quality control still sometimes missed defective components, and one of his beam emitters had burned out upon its first test firing. Ingraham hadn't considered this to be a good omen for a ship on its maiden voyage, especially considering that it was Ingraham's first command.

In fact, it had been one problem after another every since he had been appointed captain of the Homer. His original XO, who he had hand picked, had been unavailable due to illness. The Chief Engineer assigned to his ship was a territorial pain in the ass to the point that he'd almost refused to let Ingraham see the engine room when he toured the ship for the first time. The ship's physician radiated annoyance when anyone so much as spoke to her, and his tactical systems officer had arrived to find her quarters redecorated by what was undoubtedly some lower deck clown they probably recruited from the submarine service.

Even the christening ceremony had been odd. First of all, his shuttle to the shipyard in orbit of Mathison, where his ship was being launched from, had been delayed twice for reasons he still didn't know. General O'Neill had been present at the christening and had spent the entire time grinning like a fool. He had seemed especially happy to announce the ship's name, USS Homer, during the ceremony. Ingraham wasn't sure what that was about.

And then one of his plasma-beams had fried itself on its first test firing.

"Alright, since we're still going to be here the rest of the day, let's set up a few-"

His tactical officer sat up straight in her chair. Ingraham could tell something had alarmed her.

"Lieutenant Commander?" he asked.

She turned and looked at him, white in the face. "Incoming! They're right on top of us!"

Ingraham looked at the sensor readout on his command chair's display. "Christ. Why didn't we see them sooner? Sound General Quarters. Sound General Quarters right now and get us-"

Captain Ingraham never finished the sentence. Before had even finished speaking, his world dissolved into fire before the darkness fell.

Three Ha'tak class motherships swept by, blasting the shipyard and the USS Homer into tiny pieces. Without slowing down, they proceeded to Mathison. After two minutes of bombardment, every human on the surface of Mathison was dead, killed by the Ha'taks energy weapons in mushroom clouds of destruction.

XXXXXXXXXX

Captain William Connelly, commander of His Majesty's Ship Swiftsure nodded in approval at the holo-plot.

When he had first arrived at New Scappa Flow, Britain's most important off-world base, he had found himself assigned to command of a squadron of four Furious destroyers and four Ajax class frigates. The Ajaxs had been on station for a while and when he took command, he had found that his inexperienced destroyer crews had been lacking in their performance by comparison.

A rigorous training schedule had remedied that, as well as making him the most hated man in the star system. His strict regimen had paid off, however, as the current exercise demonstrated.

The frigate squadron was attempting to infiltrate past his destroyers under cloak and 'attack' the shipyard complex. The frigate crews were good, but his sensor techs were getting better. Detecting the cloaked frigates would be impossible with anything less than the best Asgard sensor systems. Fortunately, his destroyers were equipped with the required systems and his crews had finally learned to make best use of them.

Two of the four frigates showed on his plot, creeping in stealthily to hit the shipyard. He hadn't found the other two yet, but the formation of the two he had found strongly suggested the others were nearby. His flotilla wasn't in a direct pursuit, but the range would continue to close steadily for the next thirty minutes or so. That was fine with him. He didn't want to alert his targets that he had found them until he was at his closest approach.

"Commander McDevitt," Connelly said, "I do believe this exercise is proceeding quite nicely, don't you agree?"

McDevitt nodded. "Aye. I'd like to see the look on Captain Burns's face when he realizes we've found him."

Connelly was about to continue when his tactical systems officer interrupted him. "Captain, I'm detecting a hyper footprint."

"What?" McDevitt asked.

"Correction, six hyper footprints, bearing is 214 degrees by 3 degrees," the tactical officer said.

"Adjust the holo-plot," Connelly said. "Let's see them."

The plot zoomed out. The planet of New Scappa Flow was due north of his position. Captain Burn's frigates were northwest of him. The four newcomers were considerably further away, lying to his destroyer group's northeast. As Connelly watched them, their yellow icons turned blood red.

"CIC confirms six Lucian Alliance Ha'tak class motherships," the tactical officer said.

The six icons started accelerating and split up into two groups. The larger group of four was obviously on course to intercept Connelly's ships, the other two were accelerating towards the planet.

Connelly nodded. "I'd guess they're here to take out the shipyard. That's what that other group heading for the planet is probably doing."

"I should note, Captain, that they appear to have detailed no forces to deal with Captain Burns's frigates," McDevitt pointed out. "Undoubtedly, their cloaking systems have allowed them to remain undetected."

"Indeed," Connelly replied. "I take it you have an idea on how to use that to our advantage?"

"Naturally, sir," McDevitt said, allowing a smile that was anything but friendly to cross his face.

XXXXXXXXXX

The four Lucian Alliance ships advanced steadily on their enemies.

The Alliance commander was feeling pretty confident. They were equally matched in numbers, but the Tau'ri ships facing him were much smaller than his Ha'taks. He knew that he had to be careful as the Tau'ri's technology was infernally good.

However, he remained confident of his superiority. The Tau'ri's advantages simply weren't enough to bridge the obvious gap in power between the smaller ships he was facing and his own ships. Furthermore, this type of ship was new in the Tau'ri fleet, and he would be able to bring back hard data on their combat effectiveness after the battle was over, which would put him into Jorgan's good graces. That was always a good thing.

The four destroyers were fast, he had to give them that. They charged towards his battlegroup in a futile gesture. The commander had a small moment of doubt, as he wondered why they didn't simply retreat when faced with overwhelming odds. It was clear that they had the speed to do so.

Ultimately, it didn't matter what their reasons were. The commander cast away his doubt as the enemy ships entered range. His ships opened fire.

And then the enemy reversed course. Their maneuverability was considerable, and their electronic warfare was playing merry hell with his fire control sensors. Due to their speed, he knew he couldn't force a closer engagement but, ultimately, he didn't have to. All he had to do was keep his ships between these four Tau'ri and his other two Ha'taks until they took out the enemy's shipyard.

"Sir!" one of his officers yelled. "Four new contacts!"

The commander whirled towards his display and paled as four ships appeared behind him.

XXXXXXXXXX

"NRG is charged and ready," the tactical officer said.

"Very good," Connelly replied. "Send the signal to Captain Burns and begin the attack. Their flagship is our primary target, Captain Burns's primary target is Sierra 2."

Captain Burns's four frigates decloaked and came charging up the enemy battle group's wake. At the same time, Connelly's destroyers stopped playing keep away and charged towards the enemy.

Each destroyer and frigate deployed a sensor decoy to confuse the enemy. Much of their fire was drawn towards the decoys instead of actual ships, though none of their shots had scored hits. Between the decoys and the new jamming systems the Furious class destroyers and the Ajax class frigates, the Alliance motherships had almost no chance of scoring hits at anything but point blank range.

The human ships weaved and corkscrewed in patterns that might've looked like chaos to an untrained eye, but Connelly saw the order in it. When the range finally got low enough to fire their NRGs, the ships came back together in a tight formation and made their runs.

Connelly felt his ship rumble as the NRG expelled its ordnance. The viewport's glass darkened automatically as the warhead detonated, as at this range the flash was so intense it could easily blind someone.

In a flash, Connelly's destroyers went screaming past the sluggish Ha'taks.

"Report!" Connelly said.

"Two Ha'taks completely destroyed," the tactical officer said. "HMS Dorsetshire was heavily damaged, sir. She's fallen out of formation."

"Damn," Connelly swore. "Communications, ascertain Dorsetshire's situation."

"Captain, Dorsetshire's first officer reports that they have heavy casualties and their major systems offline. However, their life support is functioning and are stable for the moment," the comm officer said.

"Commander McDevitt, have some of our medical teams beam over to assist them with their casualties," Connelly said. McDevitt could hear the unhappiness in his captain's voice, but he knew that Connelly planned and he agreed with it even if it seemed a bit cold.

"Captain Burns will finish the two Ha'taks we missed. We will break off and intercept the two ships that are heading for our shipyard."

"Understood, sir," McDevitt said.

Connelly's destroyer squadron wheeled around and went blazing after their targets. The commander the remaining Alliance forces saw immediately he was outmatched. All four remaining motherships retreated to hyperspace.